Part 2 of a Discussion of Peter Foster’s Why We Bite the Invisible Hand Chapter 11 “The Darwin Wars” In the second half of the chapter, Foster turns to the origin of morality and posits it is not a recent innovation but something that is central to mankind. In the…
Tag: Capitalism
Why We Bite the Invisible Hand
Sociobiology’s Unity Blinded Its Progress
Part 1 of a Discussion of Peter Foster’s Why We Bite the Invisible Hand Chapter 11 “The Darwin Wars” Foster turns this chapter to an examination of the field of sociobiology, where evolutionary biology meets psychology, hoping to find answers to why we carry anti-capitalist views instinctively. Seeking the source…
Why We Bite the Invisible Hand
Keynesianism: The Appeal of a Theory that Empowers Experts
Part 1 of a Discussion of Peter Foster’s Why We Bite the Invisible Hand Chapter 10 “The Rise and Fall and Rise of John Maynard Keynes” Foster next turns his attention to John Maynard Keynes, a highly influential economist of the 20th century, because he sees the Keynesian theories that took hold as…
Why We Bite the Invisible Hand
Free Market Economics Requires Trusting What You Cannot See
Part 2 of a Discussion of Peter Foster’s Why We Bite the Invisible Hand Chapter 9 “The Invisible Metaphor” In the last blog, we examined the meaning of the Invisible Hand metaphor. Now we want to look at several who challenged its ability. Adam Darwin Foster discusses a lecture by…
Why We Bite the Invisible Hand
The Problems We Cause Ourselves from Few Seeing the Invisible Hand
Part 1 of a Discussion of Peter Foster’s Why We Bite the Invisible Hand Chapter 9 “The Invisible Metaphor” Foster dives deeper in this chapter into the significance of the Invisible Hand metaphor credited to Adam Smith. In this blog, we will concentrate on what is meant by the Invisible Hand, and…
Why We Bite the Invisible Hand
Are We Anti-Capitalist by Design or by Evolution?
A Discussion of Peter Foster’s Why We Bite the Invisible Hand Chapter 7 “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea” As Foster continues to explore reasons people tend to dislike capitalism despite the wealth it has generated the past couple of hundred years, he turns to the ideas of Charles Darwin and natural selection….
Why We Bite the Invisible Hand
Bernard Mandeville’s Dark Take on Commerce and the Persistence of Flawed Ideas
Part 2 of a Discussion of Peter Foster’s Why We Bite the Invisible Hand Chapter 6 “Tuesdays with Mandeville” As introduced in the last blog, Bernard Mandeville pioneered writing about the hypocrisy he thought was endemic to commerce that was a conversation happily continued by many to follow. Foster dives…
Why We Bite the Invisible Hand
Penning Hypocrisy: Writers Making Money Criticizing Capitalism
Part 1 of a Discussion of Peter Foster’s Why We Bite the Invisible Hand Chapter 6 “Tuesdays with Mandeville” Foster is tracing anti-capitalist thought across many writers of the West, and in this chapter he hits one I had not heard of: Bernard Mandeville who was born in 1670 in…
Why We Bite the Invisible Hand
Unveiling the Exasperating Contradictions in Ayn Rand’s Philosophy
Part 1 of a Discussion of Peter Foster’s Why We Bite the Invisible Hand Chapter 5 “The Passion of Ayn Rand” I was very young when I first read Ayn Rand. First, I read The Fountainhead and then Atlas Shrugged. I did not know much about anything, but I was intrigued by the idea…
Why We Bite the Invisible Hand
The Authoritarianism Inherent to Owen’s Utopia
Part 1 of a Discussion of Peter Foster’s Why We Bite the Invisible Hand Chapter 4 “Dark Satanic Minds” Soon after capitalism was born a couple of hundred years ago, the anti-capitalist movement begins. Specifically, Foster discusses in this chapter Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’ call for communism and lesser-known Robert Owen’s call for a…